COVER

At the Vancouver Opera Festival, Dead Man Walking’s stars talk about why the work has become a modern classic

At the new Vancouver Opera Festival, a searing work about death row mixes with classic productions, concerts, media art, and more.

As J’nai Bridges’ Sister Helen pleads with him to tell the truth, Daniel Okulitch’s death-row convict, Joseph, is slumping onto the floor, recoiling in shame, his handcuffs binding his wrists to a chain cinched around his waist. The singers are rehearsing a beyond-intense scene, showing how the human voice can break out even when the body is in shackles—clearly not the sort of thing Okulitch could achieve if he were pretending to wear the manacles.

“I requested them as early as possible because it affects so much of your physicality and the psychology of the scene,” says Okulitch, a Canadian bassbaritone who has sung the role in Dead Man Walking three times. He’s talking to the Straight in an interview with Bridges after the emotionally draining rehearsal at Vancouver Opera. “You feel so constrained. I mean, we all gesture with our hands, and when you don’t have that ability there’s this energy that has to go somewhere. It’s frustrating! You think, ‘Dammit, I want to move!’ That’s something that prisoners would have to learn to deal with, but I’m not sure that it would ever really go away.”

Adds rising American mezzo-soprano Bridges: “And for sure it affects how I deliver my lines to him, too.”

That physicality, along with the music, plays a huge role in defining the characters in Jake Heggie’s contemporary opera, based on both the 1995 movie and the best-selling nonfiction book by Sister Helen Prejean, with a libretto by acclaimed American playwright Terrence Mcnally.

“We don’t do a lot of things,” Okulitch explains. “There’s one big action at the beginning in the prologue—the crime—but otherwise it’s people talking to each other in really intense situations. There’s a lot going on! But it’s not ‘Here’s a song and dance and here’s a battle scene.’ It’s an intimate kind of show.”

“It’s really difficult in that way,” adds Bridges. “It’s a big stage that we have to fill with really intense conversations and still let everyone into it. Today I’m really feeling it and I think that’s not a bad thing.…there are some challenges because it sits in this place with my voice that’s kind of speak-y, so I have to be constantly thinking about different things, but one of them is not to get too sing-y—not to get too operatic.”

She’s watched countless videos of Prejean, and read her memoir, trying to unlock the nuances of the relationships that the Louisiana nun had to the prisoners she advised. “There’s a lot of information in the book that you get about how they were physically together, how he would not look at her,” she says. “Details like that have been really helpful.”

In the opera, Joseph (whose name has been changed from Sean Penn’s character Matthew Poncelet) is a composite created from two reallife death-row convicts Prejean befriended in jail. And even though the opera is called Dead Man Walking, the story is really her own—following her discoveries about guilt, forgiveness, redemption, and the death penalty. She is seeing death row for the first time, and through her eyes, we can start to confront how we feel about it, and the capacity to forgive, too.

“One of the phrases we’ve used in rehearsal is ‘It’s a race towards redemption.’ You know, we have a set amount of time, whether or not she can help me be redeemed by opening up about what I did,” the Ottawa-raised Okulitch offers. “We have to remember this is a theatrical portrayal of real-life events. Death-row confessions are rare. They are. But this isn’t a biography. It’s a story about ‘How do you forgive someone and what does that mean?’

“It’s also about the system of capital punishment. But what’s interesting is it doesn’t really choose a side. We know that Sister Helen doesn’t want him to die, but you also get the parents of the victims as major characters in the work saying ‘This was my experience and, yes, we think he should die.’ There’s no question as to his guilt: we see him in the prologue rape and murder someone. So it’s not like you’re saying, ‘Well, did he really do it?’ And then you have the character who plays my mother begging for his life. You see the crime sets off a tsunami of events that destroys the lives of many, many people, and so while it’s not a biography, it’s necessarily operatic. These are huge emotions.”

One of the nuances Okulitch has found, other than the need to wear those metal chains from the get-go, is that he can’t make his character too empathetic or the entire piece loses its power. It’s amazing to watch the affable singer, helped by the score’s southern vernacular, turn into a violent, rage-prone good ol’ boy from the Deep South— one who’s capable of horrific acts.

“The challenge of this piece is that it’s not about ‘Can you forgive somebody who you like ?’ ” he emphasizes. “It’s ‘How do you forgive the unforgivable?’

“So the first time I did this role, early on the director said, ‘You’re being way too sympathetic. We have to not like you.’ Because this isn’t about ‘Oh, that poor guy! He’s getting executed.’ He raped and he murdered someone! And he’s unrepentant until the very end. “The more you humanize someone, the more difficult it is to kill them, that just happens with the writing,” he says, then adds with a laugh: “The whole time I’m not trying to do anything appealing—specifically not, actually!”

The opera, which debuted in 2000, gives a strong contemporary option amid the three big works being staged at the first Vancouver Opera Festival. It complements and contrasts Giuseppe Verdi’s monumental Otello, staged here for the first time in 36 years, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s classic The Marriage of Figaro. Even though it’s so new, Heggie’s work now ranks as the 21st century’s most produced opera, praised for its rich yet accessible touches of zydeco, jazz, gospel, and rock,

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New Opera Festival goes far beyond stage works

The new Vancouver Opera Festival, which takes over the Queen Elizabeth Theatre plaza and both its venues from next Friday (April 28) to May 13, is an allconsuming affair.

In the past, our resident opera company has staged a few shows stretched out over an entire season; now, for the first time, it has to produce three major works over a tight 16 days—otello,

and The rehearsal studio at VO’S East Side opera centre is running from 10 in the morning till 10 at night, with using the nearby Russian Hall to prepare. Costume racks line every spare hallway and boardroom at the centre, and the props and sets facilities are in overdrive.

Concerts by the likes of cabaret-style vocalist Ute Lemper at the Orpheum on May 4 and throat singer Tanya Tagaq at the Vogue on May 12, a sing-along with the Vancouver Bach Choir on May 3, plus numerous speakers’ panels and workshops join the programming, many of them taking place in an on-site festival tent. VO aims to animate the Queen Elizabeth plaza, including a massive media-art installation by Paul Wong. (See story on page 26.)

“One of the main goals is we want to create a celebration of the arts that everyone can participate in, including events that aren’t opera,” explains Vancouver Opera’s new general director, Kim Gaynor, speaking to the on a break over the phone. “We’re trying to give lots of points of entry into the art form, with lots of activities for families and young people.” Events aimed at the latter include the kids-oriented

at the Playhouse May 2 and the pre-figaro Opera Zoo May 6 and 13 at the Playhouse, with interactive stations offering young operagoers hands-on activities like drawing, singing, and dress-up with opera pros.

“If you buy a pass you get admittance to quite a few events—it has that all-inclusive feeling,” Gaynor says. “We’re going to be using the Queen Elizabeth plaza as a place for people to just come and hang out.

“The restaurant that has not been used for a very long time, we’ve transformed that into an after-performance lounge with light snacks, refreshments.”

One of the festival’s biggest coups is a free panel discussion next Saturday (April 29) called Ethical Justice in the 21st Century that will feature Sister Helen Prejean, the real-life nun who wrote the best-selling book bringing her together with Shelley Joseph of Truth and Reconciliation Canada and Brenda Morrison, director of the Centre of Restorative Justice at SFU. creator, Jake Heggie, also hosts a free talk the day before.

And for opera buffs, the three main-stage shows offer a range of new and traditional stagings to suit different audience tastes.

“We have a massive Verdi opera: it’s overwhelming and requires such big voices and hasn’t been done here in more than 30 years. That’s monumental,” Gaynor says. “That’s for people that love Verdi and love drama and big voices.

“Then is a contemporary masterpiece in its own way. Although it’s new, it’s had 300 performances around the world and it’s very easy to listen to.

“And it’s a comic opera that was revolutionary at the time,” she says. “It’s a joy to look at and to listen to. If it’s your first opera, people should see that one.”

A lot is at stake as Vancouver Opera changes its format, throwing its resources into the spring fest and hoping that music lovers and the curious will converge on the Queen Elizabeth plaza next week.

“Some people have no idea what we’re up to. Vancouver has so many fantastic festivals,” Gaynor admits. “And then some have a wait-and-see attitude—‘let’s go and we’ll see.’ I find here that people are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

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